This year saw some new lows for any desernablle film lover. Needless sequels to awful originals, pointless comicbook adaptations, and comedies lacking in the basic department; namely to make us laugh. So, here is the list of the very worst films of 2011 ranked in order of awfulness:
#10: Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows
Straight in at number 10 having only opened with 2 weeks of the year remaining, Guy Ritchie’s sequel to the very entertaining 2009 original is brainless, pointless, and totally void of any attempt to delight it’s audience or build on the foundations it set when Robert Downey Jr wasn’t annoying and picking up the paycheque befor our very eyes.
Here is my original review from Dec 28th
#9: Thor
So forgettable was Kenneth Brannagh’s adaptation of Marvel’s comic-book hero Thor, I’ve had look again at my original review to remind myself just how bad it was. Boring, overly noisey, and with two action set-pieces shoehorned in to meet the explosion quota, Thor leaves the memory before the credits start to roll. Needless to say, I hold no hope for Thor 2 when it’s rushed onto our screens.
#8: Drive Angry
This marks the first entry on the list for one of my favourite film stars, Nicolas Cage. His first venture into 3D is a weak and frail attempt into the grindhouse genre which thankfully has all but died since the flop of Tarantino/Rodriguez’s Death Proof/ Planet Terror. Even still, Drive Angry feels like it was made too late for an audience that didn’t even exist; Cage ghosts through the pedestrian action scenes and the obvious bullets-at-the-screen for 3D is tiresome from the very start.
Here’s my original review from March 6th
#7: Season Of The Witch
Here’s Nic Cage’s second flop of the year, the achingly-stupid tale of crusaders in the 13th century who talk like it’s 2011 in scenes which are unforgivably bad in any year. The film starts off well, but rapidly disintergrates as the ‘plot’ unfolds. When the script called for Cage’s character to talk with the devil, he should have ran a mile. Alas, he didn’t, and we were left with Season Of The Witch.
Here’s my original review from January 9th
#6: Trespass
Mr Cage makes it’s three shockers in a row with the worst of a bad bunch of films in Trespass. What makes this one worse than the rest is the inclusion of co-star Nicole Kidman - what in the name of all that’s holy she saw in this toiletpaper worthy screenplay is anyone’s guess. It’s the worst thing such a talented actress will ever make in her career.
Here is my full verdict from October 22nd
#5: The Green Lantern
“It’s not an awful film in that it tries so hard and fails, but rather in that it just doesn’t try” - This was my major problem with Martin Campbell’s boring and lifeless film when I saw it in June. Some films try to hard (as we’ll see later in the list) but Green Lantern just gave up before it even started. It’ll be the death of any trace of originality if Warner Brothers pursue a sequel to this. Pray with me that they don’t.
Here’s my 3 out of 10 full review of the film.
#4: Fright Night
It’s no secret that I hate 3D, but I understand why some films are shot in the technology. The truely dire remake of Fright Night was made even worse because of the 3D I was forced to watch it in; not giving a paying customer the chance to see a film in traditional 2D is a hate crime. It’s a truely horrible experience, but at least I had fun in tearing it apart when I reviewed it on September 4th.
#3: Transformers: Dark Of The Moon
158 minutes minus 8 minutes equals 150 minutes.
That’s what Michael Bay gave us out of over 2 and a half hours of footage; 8 decent minutes. The rest was some of the worst film making I’ve seen in this or any year.
It is painful to watch this garbage as it unfold in eyeball-destroying 3D, but still there were two other films which upset my senses more than Michael Bay’s best efforts to win that particular prize…
Here is my original rant from July 3rd
#2: The Hangover Part II
The single worse ‘comedy’ I’ve ever seen at the cinema and one of the most appaulingly bad films I’ve seen for years, the sequel to 2009’s amusing (at best) smash hit is everything that’s wrong with Hollywood as a money-making machine. If ever a sequel was unwarranted, then this is it. Utterly devoid of any redeemable qualities - I hated this film with a passion I didn’t know existed.
Here’s my scathing review from when I saw it on May 30th
#1: Battle: Los Angeles
It had to be a monumentally bad film to top a list of bad film’s including Transformers: DOTM and The Hangover Part II, but sadly I saw one.
Battle: Los Angeles made me angry whilst watching it. I was furious that Columbia Pictures would finance what I was seeing on the screen, it is an unforgivable abonimation of cinema. Not an original idea, line, shot, or single frame went into its production. It is not only the worst film of the year, but the worst film I have seen at the cinema from, what I work out to be, about 450-500 movies.
The only place it should be shown is in prison. That’ll teach them.
Here’s my original review of this hate-filled excuse for a film.
